HONOR BOUND

Chapter 11

Is it day or night? I try to squint through the slit that remains between my swollen lids and imagine seeing some light before the effort gets too much and I sink back into the black pit I'm floating in. This pit is filled with some dark, murky liquid that eats away everything around me – lights, sounds, sensations. The only thing it carefully preserves is pain.

Everything hurts. Breathing, swallowing, every movement, even crying. Images flit past: every wounded and dying soldier I've ever seen, men howling in pain, men staring with glassy eyes into the emptiness about to take them, men to whom I've quietly given a potion that puts them into a sleep so deep not even pain can reach them. I wish I had that potion now, but it's not something to be carried around among healing ointments and herbs. If I had it, would I take it?

I have no idea how long I've been in this pit, I only know that it feels like forever. If only it were silent inside it, but no. My heart is beating so loud it hurts, blood is screeching in my veins, every breath rattles in my ears. My throat hurts from screaming, my mouth tastes of blood and bile, and now there is some noise loud enough to push through the wallowing bubble of pain that engulfs me. Just please leave me alone. I think, though cannot be sure, that it was quieter a while ago. Is it morning now? And if so, why should I pay attention?

Shouting. Loud voices somewhere near. Now I can make out words and cling to them, struggling to hear better. Why are they yelling? Maybe that would distract me from the pain for a moment, if I tried to listen to something else instead.

"What in the devil's name is the matter?"

That voice feels like a kick in the gut and I would bundle up more tightly but my body refuses to cooperate.

"My Lord!"

The voice sounds unnaturally loud. The man is breathless, and he must be standing right next to this tent, probably so close that he could easily kick me if he wanted. I have a faint memory of someone shoving me in here, heaven knows how long ago that was. Oh, but I was going to listen...

"One of the men watching the road sends an urgent message, my Lord. There's a heavily guarded convoy approaching the village of Mordhes. It's definitely headed for Noragayll, there are men bearing Lord Jhorell's colors riding with it, and it looks like there's a woman riding in a wagon!"

"Morons!" The roar is deafening. "Some watchmen! How is it possible that they've already got that far?"

Noise and commotion explodes outside the tent but that's too much for me to follow and I slide back into my pit. At least it's relatively peaceful inside this tent; funny how the single layer of thick cloth seems to isolate me from the happenings outside, even if it cannot keep the noises out. The ground shakes under running feet and hooves and that doesn't feel at all good, so I try to huddle within myself and think of something else.

Such as a castle, a big inviting castle, its wonderful bathhouse and lavish meals, and with a real bed with real mattresses and bedcovers, but somehow the big, brawny Rogher who should be sharing all those comforts with me keeps slipping away. I picture the mighty Deleon as it looks from afar, its tall towers and forbidding walls, imagine how it feels to approach it, but something is wrong. Instead of looking bigger by every stride it keeps shrinking, the stone getting darker, until I know for sure that it is not Deleon but Noragayll I'm looking at. I want to turn away but cannot, my feet move of their own accord until all too soon I'm inside and in the big hall where the handsome Lord Jhorell looks at me over a silver cup, his eyes and smile cold. Behind him is a huge fireplace and a roaring blaze inside it, and that's when I notice the long poker sticking out of it.

I wake up with a jolt. Did I whimper? Please, no, or at least let no one have heard me because I don't want them to remember that I still exist. Covered in cold sweat I hold my breath, fearing that someone might come, but no one does and the pit begins to drag me down once more. This time, though, I claw a hold of its edge because I know I'm about to realize something important, and slowly it dawns upon me.

Everything is quiet around me. The usual sounds of the camp have fallen silent, there's no movement, no noises of work or leisure. All I can hear is my own unsteady breathing and the lazy shush of trees, punctuated by occasional twitter of birds. I listen to the silence until my ears are humming too loud to hear anything else, and I sink once more to the ground. At which point did I raise my head?

I must be alone. They have all gone, forgotten about me or possibly deemed me worthless enough to leave behind. How long ago was it that they disappeared – just a few moments? Half a day? Anything in between, or possibly even longer?

I'm alone, I tell myself. For some reason this is very important, and I focus on sifting through the thoughts in some kind of an order. The men have gone to attack a convoy – can it really be the one carrying Lady Inella's dowry?  I remember Mordhes village from our journey, it was where the eastern road splits from the northbound route. That's quite some ways from Tmer, and wasn't the convoy supposed to leave several days after myself and Rogher and Lady Inella?

On the other hand, what else could it possibly be? These men wouldn't mistake for example a transport from the mines for a convoy carrying a rich woman's dowry, and I have no clue what day it might be now. We had journeyed for days already before parting ways, I have no idea how long I've been held here.

Besides, didn't they say something about Noragayll's soldiers? So, supposing that it's more than just a few moments since Lord Berdar's men rode off, right now there might be a fierce battle going on somewhere downhill from where I'm huddled.

They've gone off and left me behind, but they might come back – and I do not want to be here if and when that happens. No, I have to get away somehow! The voice grows more resolute and insistent and urgent until it is practically banging inside my skull, and I try to push it away. I'm cold, I'm too feeble and exhausted and in too much pain to move. My mangled hands cannot even get a proper hold of the blanket to pull it tighter, and the tent is so blissfully quiet and dark...

Get up, the voice tells me. It's beginning to sound oddly like Rogher. Stop being such a whiner and get going! They might be back any moment and you've already wasted quite enough time just lounging there. Do you really want to wait for them? Haven't they beaten you enough yet? Yes, it hurts, but you're not dead yet and as long as there's life there is also hope. Get yourself up this instant and move! Here's your chance to escape, you might not get another.

But what if this is, after all, just a trap they've laid out for me? That's another voice piping up in my head but the first, more determined one refuses to acknowledge such nonsense. Why would they bother to do something so elaborate? You're not that important. They simply left you behind and went to take care of something first, but just you wait until they get back. They might have taken quite a licking from Lord Jhorell's men guarding the convoy, and boy, will they be pissed off! Or what if they manage to beat the guards, snatch the dowry, and realize that Lady Inella has given them the slip? Just imagine in what mood Lord Jhorell will be then!

No, no, no, I don't want to think about that, so I dredge up every last bit of courage and strength left inside me and wrestle myself into a sitting position. The world makes a few nasty spins before my eyes – or rather, the only eye that isn't swollen completely shut – before slowing down to something more manageable.

I crawl out of the tent and peer around. The camp is still there all right but there really is no movement. There's no way I could get up, not with these hands and feet, nor is there any point because I couldn't walk two steps anyway, so I go on crawling on all fours like an animal. It's such an agonizingly slow way to get forward but it's the best I can do. My heart is racing, any moment now I'm sure to hear the sound of horses and men returning, but the silence is unbroken except for the noises I make myself: twigs breaking under my hands and knees, the rustle of underbrush as I drag my damaged foot behind me, the hoarse sobs. Is that me breathing? Hair falls over my only useful eye, I swipe it aside and feel the wetness. Tears are running down my face; how strange that I didn't realize them before.

It doesn't take long before I've completely lost all sense of distance and direction. Keeping so close to the ground, I can't even properly say whether I'm going up or down, and that alarms my fuzzy brain. Lord Berdar's troops have gone downhill to the road, so I definitely don't want to go that way. Only, which way is up and which way is down? Using a tree as my prop I struggle up to stand on my knees and try to get my bearings straight, with little success. The ground doesn't slope very steeply at this spot, and why have I never realized just how difficult it is to make sense of distances with only one eye? No, this is hopeless. I can't make any sense of my surroundings and I'm fast running out of strength. I need to rest.

Right then there's a sudden noise from somewhere not very far away and I drop back on all fours to scramble madly forward through the coarse growth, away from it, quick! Panic overwhelms pain until a moss-covered stone under my hand slips and twists my wrist, throwing me off balance so that I fall face down to the ground. As I lay there panting, I hear the noise again and this time I recognize it: a grouse or some other larger bird taking to its wings, followed by the disappointed screech of a goshawk. A hunter is indeed after its prey, but not the hunter I fear. 

Was this a very sensible thing to do, asks the smaller voice in my head. Now you're lost in the woods, without food, badly hurt, and completely on your own. What are you going to do now, Zyan?

He'll be just fine if you just shut up, you coward and loser, chides the Rogher-voice. Now, Zyan, pull yourself together. It's a good idea to rest a bit, in a while, but first you need to find a more comfortable spot. You don't want to wake up covered in ants, so you must go on still a little bit further. You know well enough what to look for.

The voice keeps me going, slowly but steadily. After a while my head begins to tell me that I am indeed going upwards, and that encourages me to push on even though I know that the inevitable moment of collapse is looming right over my head. Exhaustion should have caught up with me already a good while ago, there's no strength left inside me but in a mindless daze I crawl on, one hand and knee at a time. I have to find a hiding place where I can rest for just a moment, and even though by now my only working eye is nearly blind as well because of all the grasses and twigs brushing my face, I think I can see such a spot right ahead. There's some bush and stones to hide between. That's where I'll go to sleep a little.

The place is not only my imagination, I reach it and push through the growth. My blurred senses have just enough time to tell me that the air smells somehow funny, then my groping hand meets nothing but air. Disoriented, I try to grab a hold of the bush but too late, I've lost my balance already before its roots lose their feeble grip of the stony ground.

I have barely time to gasp as the edge of the rock crumbles to gravel and sends me tumbling down the slope. It's steep but not a sheer drop, not that it really matters because I'm rolling down so fast that I wouldn't be able to stop myself even if my hands were all right. My head hits against something, I see stars, and the last sensation before I pass out is a wonderful feeling of floating. As if I was again a little boy far away on the south coast, lolling in the salty pools left behind by the receding tide.